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If you are struggling to choose which female honorific is the most appropriate to address the modern woman, be sure that you are not the only one. It is not an easy question.

Below we have detailed an explanation of Mrs., Ms., and Miss that should help you to address ladies correctly.

The three nouns Mrs., Ms., and Miss appeared in the 17th century and come from the female English title Mistress which was used to refer to all women. The full stop of the abbreviations is generally used in the USA and Canada whereas in the UK the abbreviations are commonly written without any full stop.

Ms. is slightly old fashioned compared to the two other titles but has been revived in the 20th century.  This English honorific is mostly used in business and public life to address a lady. This is generally used when her marital status is unknown. It is neutral regarding marital status. The plural for Ms. can be  Mss. or either Mses.. You may also use the French plural “Mesdames” abbreviated Mmes.

Miss is used to refer to an unmarried woman, or girls under eighteen in some countries. Miss alone is frequently used by schoolchildren to address a female teacher no matter what her marital status is. The plural for Miss is Misses or you may use the traditional French “Mesdemoiselles”.

Finally, Mrs. is strictly used to refer to a married woman. For the plural you can use the French plural “Mesdames” abbreviated Mmes like for Ms.

Some women may have a preference for Ms., Miss, or Mrs. and if a woman has a professional title, it is more appropriate to use that title such as Doctor, Professor, or Captain instead of Ms., Miss, or Mrs.

So what is your favorite Mrs., Ms., and Miss?

STAR Translation Services

English is one of the most spoken languages in the world. Just how good are we in using it though? Most of the time we’re all really good, but there are a few words that just drive us all mad and we constantly mix them up.

As we proofread documents we come across a lot of common misunderstandings in the use of certain English words.

Here is a little infographic we designed to help eliminate some of the common errors we come across everyday.

Did we miss anything? Drop us a line with your favourite errors.

How good are you?

Infographic - 7 common English mistakes

STAR Translation Services provides proofreading services in multiple languages.

“Its” or “It’s”?

The dreaded contraction! Whilst it looks hard this is a relatively simple question to answer.

It’s

It’s is the contraction of it is or it has.

Example:

It is always a pleasure to help you.

It’s always a pleasure to help you.

Its

“Its” is the possessive form.

Example:

John is ready to help the company grow its business.

I find the best way to ensure you are using the correct one is to expand “it’s” to “it is” and read it out loud. If it sounds correct you are correct. Its it sounds wrong use the other one.

What grammar question would you love to ask us?

By STAR Translation Services

Dr or Dr. ?

What is the correct abbreviation for Doctor?

Doctor comes from the Latin word Doctor. The word originates from the Latin verb docere which means “to teach”.

This week we are having a big debate about this one and we’re still not decided who won? There are multiple camps in this space.

Camp 1:

Either Abbreviations “Dr” or “Dr.” can be used to designate a person who has doctorate-level degree.

Camp 2:

Only Dr. is correct as it is an abbreviation. You should always use the period.

In the UK is appears to be ok to use either Dr or Dr. However in America the defacto is to always use the period. So it is Dr. in America.

Just for fun consider this…

The plural of “Dr.” is “Drs.” or “Dres.” in some languages (German).

In British English you don’t have to indicate an abbreviation with a full stop after the abbreviation, when the last letter is the same as the abbreviated word. So you can use Dr Smith, because ‘r’ is the last letter of “Doctor”. However if he had a Phd. you have to use a period because the last letter is different from the entire word “…. doctorate”

It is the opposite in North American English. So the abbreviation of Doctor is generally “Dr” in most of the Commonwealth whereas it is “Dr.” in North America.

Source : Wikipedia

by STAR Translation Services

Share your point of view with us -  Which abbreviation do you use and why?

The following information provides a list of suffixes which are common to the English language.

Suffixes are added to the end of a word to change its meaning.  Common Suffix word endings are:

-ant                                -ise                           -ful

-ent                                -ist                            -ness

-ible                               -fy                             -ism

-ing                                -ly                              -ment

- ize                              -able                          -ation

Adding a suffix may change the spelling of the preceding word. If a word ends in a y that is preceded by a consonant (happy, Beauty), the y changes to i:

happy               happiness

beauty             beautiful

But if the y is preceded by a vowel, the y remains: I envy your enjoyment of the situation.  It obviously caused you much merriment. And if the original word ends in an e, this is usually dropped: You are the most lovable but not at all sensible.

Abuse/Misuse/Disabuse

To abuse something means to treat it so badly that you damage it.

To misuse something means to use it wrongly.

To disabuse someone or something means to show them that their thinking is wrong.

Affect/Effect

Affect is a verb and effect is a noun. So you affect something by having an effect on it.  (The exception is if you effect a change; that is, cause a change to happen.)

USEFUL MNEMONIC:

RAVEN , that is: Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun

Among/Between

Use between for two things; among for more than two.

Between you and me, there’s no way we can divide these five loaves and two fishes among our five thousand guests.

Useful mnemonic:

beTween = Two

aMong = Many

Pluralizing words isn’t always a simple matter of adding an s on the end, and switching a word from masculine form to feminine form isn’t always a matter of adding -ess.

• The words alms, amends, cattle, clothes, doldrums, ides, pants, pliers, scissors, shorts, smithereens, and trousers are all plural but have no singular form.

Many words are both singular and plural.  Here are a few: Scissors, Species, you, pants, deer, moose, and sheep, are spelled and pronounced the same way in both their singular and plural forms.    Example: “There stands a sheep” and plural as in, “Look at that flock of sheep.”  More interesting words with this property are congeries, kudos, premises, shambles, series, and species. Fish can be both singular and plural, yet fishes is also a correct pluralization of the word.

• The words bourgeois, chassis, corps, faux pas, gardebras, précis, pince-nez, and rendezvous all have plurals spelled the same way but pronounced differently.

Dangling Modifiers, Misplaced modifiers are all expressions that grammarians toss into the conversation on purpose to confuse and embarrass the rest of us.  So what do they mean? Well consider a sentence such as:

Walking down the high street, the new shoe shop caught her eye.

We all probably know what is meant, but grammatically what this sentence says is that the shoe shop was walking down the street.  The participle is dangling (or misplaced or misrelated) because it seems to relate to the wrong part of the sentence.  As she was walking down the high street, the new shoe shop caught her eye is correct and unambiguous.  As is Walking down the high street, she was thrilled to notice the new shoe shop.

RULE 1:

The (unexpressed subject of the participle clause – that is, the person or thing that is walking down the high street – should have the same subject as the (expressed) subject of the main clause: she.

RULE 2:

The modifying clause or phrase (walking down the high street) should always come as near as possible to the noun or pronoun it modifies.

Careless positioning of all sorts of modifiers can cause amusement, confusion or actions for libel:

• John still attends his local church where he was married regularly.
• We will continue to sell goods to people in plastic wrapping.
• She was taken to hospital after being bitten by a spider in a bathing suit.
• The bride was given away by her father wearing her mother’s wedding dress
• Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people? A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.

Another great example that I personally love is:

‘I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I’ll never know.’

Everyday and every day are frequently confused in English. Here is a short explanation of the difference between the two:

Everyday (adjective) means ordinary or normal.

-She chose to wear her everyday clothes to the funeral.

Every day (determiner + noun)  means “each day.”

-He is late for work every day.

Effect and affect can each be used as both a noun and a verb. They are easily confused as they sound similar and the two main usages are associated with something being changed or altered.

If you’re not sure which to use, a good rule of thumb is that effect is more often used as a noun and affect as a verb. This holds true for almost all situations in Standard English.

The two more common words
-Effect (Noun): A result or impact, something caused by something else.
“The new teacher had a positive effect (impact) on the school.”

-Affect (Verb): To alter or change (or have an effect on)
“The new teacher affected (altered) the way the school was run.”

The two less common words
-Effect (Verb): To cause something to happen or occur.
“The new teacher effected (brought about) curricular and disciplinary change.”

-Affect (Noun): A psychology term for an external display of emotion.
“The new teacher noticed that the boy had flat affect (showed no emotion).”